Live Music
Archive
Librivox
Free Audio
Metropolitan Museum
Cleveland
Museum of Art
Internet
Arcade
Console Living Room
Open Library
American
Libraries
TV News
Understanding
9/11Henrik Mayer
Item Preview
HenrikMayerPhotographLAA.jpg
Share or Embed This Item
- Publication date
- 1945
- Topics
- Lyme Art Association, Old Lyme, Henrik Mayer, Elected Artist
- Collection
- lymeartassociation; additional_collections
- Language
- English
- Item Size
- 430.0K
Henrik Mayer photograph c.1945 (collection of Julie Tschanz)
Henrik Martin Mayer (1909-1972) Elected Artist Member (September 6, 1947) Lyme Art Association; Exhibited at Lyme Art Association 1947-1971 (memorial exhibition 1973), active on Exhibition Committee
Online biography of Henrik Mayer:
Originally from New Hampshire, Henrik Mayer took his art training at the Manchester Institute of Art in New Hampshire and the Yale School of Fine Art, from where he earned a B.F.A. Among his teachers were Maud Briggs Knowlton and mural specialist Eugene Savage. In 1931, he studied in Europe as a Winchester Fellow, and the following year he married Jessie Hull, whose birth place was New Haven and whom he met at Yale when they were both art students. He accepted a teaching position in New York City, and also served as designer and decorator of the New York Cosmopolitan Club including an octagonal room, a job in which he was assisted by his wife. In 1934 he moved with Jessie to Indianapolis where he became Assistant Director under Director, Donald Mattison, at the John Herron Art Institute. One of his chief responsibilities was managing the school finances during a time of widespread economic depression. He also did fine-art painting, and exhibition venues during this period included the Hoosier Salon, Herron Institute, Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran Gallery Biennial, and the National Academy of Design where he won the Altman Prize in 1938. To supplement his income, Mayer filled mural commissions, becoming the first painter to receive a mural commission in Indiana under the WPA’s Federal Art Project. One of his murals is at the post office building in Lafayette, Indiana, the result of a competition in which his wife, entering as Jessie Hull Mayer, was the runner-up choice. Afterwards, she wrote to the committee that “it is perhaps better for the peace of our family that you did not award it to me, because I am Mrs. Henrik Mayer.” (Newton 103) At the close of the 1946 John Herron Institute school term, the Mayers moved to Essex, Connecticut where Henrik became Director of the Hartford Art School of the Wadsworth Athaneum. Not only was this a strong professional advancement, but it was also a chance for the Mayers to return to the cultural opportunities they loved of the East Coast as well as to the vicinity of their families. Henrik Mayer continued mural work as well from his home studio, and in 1952, the couple, in their mid 40s, had a daughter, Julie. In 1956, he became Dean of the Art School of the University of Hartford in Connecticut, a position he held until 1963. He also served as Director of the Wadsworth Atheaneum. Although much of his time was devoted to administrative duties, he continued as a fine art painter and muralist and also did lithography and illustration and gave lectures on topics such as “Pictorial Analysis and Painting Techniques”. Henrik Mayer died in 1972. Sources include: Judith Vale Newton and Carol Ann Weiss, Skirting the Issue, 102-110 Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art
2015 Biography of Henrik Mayer by Gary W. Knoble:
Henrik Martin Mayer (1908-1972) “A Hartford Biography” © Gary W. Knoble, 2015 The prolific muralist and painter Henrik Mayer was a significant figure in the history of the Hartford art scene. He and his wife Jessie Hull Mayer, also a muralist, arrived in Hartford in 1946. He was to head the Hartford Art School for 10 years during its transition from an independent institution located at the Wadsworth Atheneum to a part of the University of Hartford. The new campus was completed in 1956 when Mayer resigned as director. He continued to teach and paint in Hartford until his death in 1972, creating many murals in local institutions. Mayer was born in Nashua, New Hampshire on January 24, 1908. While in high school, he worked as an assistant at the Currier Gallery of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. He was encouraged in his artistic pursuits by Maud Briggs Knowlton, who was a well-known Manchester artist, art educator, and the first director of the Currier Gallery. He graduated from the Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences in 1927. He then studied at the Yale School of Fine Arts, where he received a BFA in 1931. While studying at Yale, he apprenticed with mural painters, Eugene Savage and Willy Pogany. Upon graduation, Mayer was awarded the William Wirt Winchester Fellowship for study in Europe. In 1932 he married Jessie Hull of New Haven, who was a fellow student and mural painter at Yale. They were married at Shepherds Point in Branford, Connecticut. Both Mayer and his wife Jessie began to paint murals for the WPA in the year they were married. They often bid on the same mural projects. After graduating from Yale, the Mayers moved to New York City where he taught for a year at Cooper Union. He served as a designer and decorator for the Cosmopolitan Club when they were building their new home on 66th Street. Mayer and his wife Jessie collaborated in designing the murals for the “octagonal room” at the club. In 1934, the Mayers moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. He became Assistant Director of the John Herron Art School under Donald Mattison and she became the assistant to the curator of the Indianapolis Art Museum. Mattison, only three years Mayer’s senior, had also studied at Yale and worked as an assistant to Eugene Savage. Mayer remained at Herron for 13 years. At some point during that time he also served as a guest instructor at the University of Iowa. While at Herron he received several prestigious prizes including the Edwin A. Abbey Award from the National Academy of Design in 1938, the Second Altman Prize from the National Academy for his painting, “Halloween Carnival” in 1941 (this painting is in the Herron art gallery), and prizes from the John Herron Art Institute in 1943 and 1946. Mayer and his wife Jessie designed many murals under the auspices of the WPA. His most famous murals are probably those done in 1936 for the Louisville, Kentucky Marine Hospital. His wife was the runner up bidder to create these murals. In recognition of the quality of her submission, she was commissioned to do a mural at the Culver, Indiana Post Office. She also did murals for the Post Offices in Jasper, Indiana and Lagrange, Indiana. The Mayers spent their summers painting in Branford, Connecticut and Monhegan Island, Maine. In 1946, they moved to Essex Connecticut where he became the director of the Hartford Art School, which was then located at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford. He succeeded Frederick S. Hynd, who continued teaching at the art school. Several sources say that Mayer was also the director of the Atheneum but this is incorrect. The confusion is probably due to the fact that A. Everett Austin resigned as director of the Atheneum on January 1, 1945, but his successor, Charles C. Cunningham was not appointed until 1946. On September 25, 1946, an article in the Hartford Courant announced Mayer’s appointment and his plans for the art school. “Included in Mayer’s plans for the Hartford Art School is a system whereby prospective students, beginning next June, will be required to take entrance examinations. ‘We are aiming now for college grade students,’ Mr. Mayer Said. ‘With the new affiliation with Hillyer College art school students will eventually study English, psychology, philosophy and other academic subjects in conjunction with their art courses’, he said. ‘Upon completion of the prescribed four year course diplomas will be awarded.’” This marked the beginning of the alliance between the Hartford Art School, Hillyer College, and The Hartt School of Music, which would result in the creation of the University of Hartford. One of Mayer’s first actions was to invite his former student at Herron, Paul Zimmerman, to join him in Hartford to teach at the Art School. Mayer told Zimmerman he had hired him since he had observed at Herron that when Zimmerman’s fellow students needed help, it was Zimmerman they always turned to. Zimmerman taught at the art school and painted in Hartford for the next 40 years. In 1946 the Town & Country Club in Hartford held a show featuring prints and sculptures by Mayer and works of Zimmerman and Hynd. In 1949 and 1958, Mayer won first prizes from the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art. In 1955 the Atheneum held a show that included works of Wolfgang Behl, Clifford Jones, Gail Martin, Mayer, Alan Tompkins, and Paul Zimmerman, all faculty members of the Hartford Art School. Additional works in the show were by Hartford artists Irving Katzenstein, Walter Meigs, and Howard Rackliffe. Mayer’s daughter Julie was born in 1952. In 1956, the Art School joined Hillyer College and The Hartt School of Music at the newly built campus of The University of Hartford in West Hartford. Mayer had helped design the building for the art school. During his 10 years as director, Mayer prepared the Art School for the transition from an independent institution to a part of the new University of Hartford. He signed the papers of incorporation and then, in 1956, resigned as administrator. Mayer remained at the school as professor of painting and chairman of the faculty from 1956 until his retirement in 1970. In 1956, Richard Freeman served as dean of the Art School for one year and was succeeded by Alan Tompkins, who remained dean for 11 years. In 1957 Mayer received first prize at the Boston Arts Festival. In 1958 he received an Honorary Medal of the Hartford Art School, the school’s highest honor. He became a National Academy Academician in 1969, three years before his protégé Zimmerman. Both of the Mayers continued to design numerous murals throughout the country. His notable local mural commissions included the Newington School (1953), Whiting Lane School in West Hartford (1954), Riverside Trust in Hartford (1956), outdoor mosaics at the Fine Arts Center at the University of Connecticut in Storrs (1959), the Wethersfield Library mural featuring the founders of Wethersfield (1959), an outdoor mural at Southern Connecticut State University, and a commission from The Hartford Fire Insurance Company. He continued to paint and exhibited nationally until the end of his life. His local solo shows included those held at Wesleyan University and the Lyman Allen Museum. Mayer died in the Yale New Haven Hospital on December 19, 1972. In October of 1973, the Hartford Art School held a memorial exhibition in the Joseloff Gallery, of 73 of Mayer’s works ranging from 1931 to 1972. The works came from the collections of Paul Zimmerman, the Wadsworth Atheneum, the Springfield Museum of Fine Art, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Connecticut General Insurance Company, the Wesleyan University Press, the Hartford Hospital, the New Haven Paint and Clay Club, and a number of private collectors. A small commemorative brochure accompanied the exhibition. Ask/Art, “Henrik Martin Mayer”, “Maud Briggs Knowlton” Fineestateart.com Gaddis, Eugene R., William G. DeLana Archivist and Curator of the Austin House Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2015 Hartford Courant, “Prof. H. M. Mayer Dies; UofH Art School Figure”. 12/20/72, 9/25/1946, 6/16/1955, 6/5/1958 “Henrik Martin Mayer 1908-1972”, Joseloff Gallery, Hartford Art School, 1973 The Herron Chronicle, 2003 Legacy.com, “Jessie Mayer Obituary”, 2009 National Academy.org Wethersfield Library.org, “A Library Treasure” Wikipedia, “”Eugene Savage”
Information about Henrik Mayer:
Lyme Art Association is located in Old Lyme, Connecticut; founded 1914
- Addeddate
- 2022-07-22 02:36:33
- Identifier
- HenrikMayerPhotographLAA
- Identifier-ark
- ark:/13960/s238ksv8q3b
- Scanner
- Internet Archive HTML5 Uploader 1.7.0
- Year
- 1945
comment
Reviews
85 Views
DOWNLOAD OPTIONS
IN COLLECTIONS
Lyme Art Association
Additional Collections
Uploaded by jackm135 on
